8 November 1858 – 14 November 1858

P. M. — To Boulder Field. Goodwin, laying wall at Miss Ripley’s, observed to me going by, “ Well, it seems that thought that he had lived long enough.” He committed suicide within a week, at his sister’s house in Sudbury. A boy slept in the chamber with him, and, hearing a noise, got [up] and found on the floor with both his jugular veins cut, but his windpipe whole. He said to the boy, “'Take the razor and cut deeper,’ but the boy ran, and died, and Garfield said it was about time, for , in re- venge for being sent to the house of correction, had set fire to a pile of wood of his, that long pile by the road- side beyond William Wheeler’s, that I stood under in probably burned Witherell’s house too, and perhaps Boynton’s stable. The red osier at Mrs. Simmons’s is quite bare; how long? Her hawthorn is still quite leafy and pretty, yel- low-brown, dotted. A thorn at Hall’s fence is dark scar- let and pretty. ‘There are many leaves on the buckthorn still. Common thorn bushes, long since bare, when many grow together in clumps, make another such a smoke, though smaller, as the maples, — the same color. I can often distinguish the bush by this. Alders are a very dark gray, sort of iron gray, and, if near enough, you see a rain once. dark lines (the stems) and specks (the fruit) like cin- ders, like a very dense, dark, and unconsumed uliginous smoke, in which many cinders rise. Those trees and bushes which grow in dense masses and have many fine twigs, being bare, make an agreeable misty impression where there are a myriad retreating points to receive the eye, not a hard, abrupt wall; just as, in the sky, the visual ray is cushioned on clouds, unless it is launched into the illimitable ether. The eye is less worn and wearied, not to say wounded, by looking at these mazes where the seer is not often conscious of see- ing anything. It is well that the eye is so rarely caught and detained by any object in one whole hemisphere of its range, 2. e. the sky. It enjoys everlasting holiday on this side. Only the formless clouds and the objectless ether are presented to it. For they are nervous who see many faces in the clouds. Corresponding to the clouds in the sky are those mazes now on the earth. Nature dis- poses of her naked stems so softly as not to put our eyes out. She makes them a smoke, or stationary cloud, on this side or that, of whose objective existence we rarely take cognizance. She does not expect us to notice them. She calls our attention to the maple swamp more espe- cially in October. There is also the coarse maze produced by an oak wood (when nearly all the leaves are fallen), in which, however, the large boughs reflecting the light have con- siderable distinctness, and that of the forest in general. I thought, from a small specimen, that the brushy yel- low birch tops were of the same hue with the alders.? Nature has many scenes to exhibit, and constantly draws a curtain over this part or that. She is constantly repainting the landscape and all surfaces, dressing up some scene for our entertainment. Lately we had a leafy wilderness, now bare twigs begin to prevail, and soon she will surprise us with a mantle of snow.! Some green she thinks so good for our eyes, like blue, that she never banishes it entirely, but has created evergreens. It is remarkable how little any but a lichenist will ob- serve on the bark of trees. The mass of men have but the vaguest and most indefinite notion of mosses, as a sort of shreds and fringes, and the world in which the lichenist dwells is much further from theirs than one side of this earth from the other. They see bark as if they saw it not. ‘These objects which, though constantly visible, are rarely looked at are a sort of eye-brush. Each phase of nature, while not invisible, is yet not too distinct and obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not demanding our attention. It is likea silent but sympathizing companion in whose company we retain most of the advantages of solitude, with whom we can walk and talk, or be silent, naturally, without the necessity of talking in a strain foreign to the place. I know of but one or two persons with whom [ can afford to walk. With most the walk degenerates into a mere vigorous use of your legs, ludicrously purposeless, while you are discussing some mighty argument, each one having his say, spoiling each other’s day, worry- ing one another with conversation, hustling one another with our conversation. I know of no use in the walking part in this case, except that we may seem to be getting on together toward some goal; but of course we keep our original distance all the way. Jumping every wall and ditch with vigor in the vain hope of shaking your com- panion off. ‘T'rying to kill two birds with one stone, though they sit at opposite points of [the] compass, to see nature and do the honors to one who does not. Animals generally see things in the vacant way I have described. They rarely see anything but their food, or some real or imaginary foe. I never saw but one cow looking into the sky. Lichens as they affect the scenery, as picturesque ob- jects described by Gilpin or others, are one thing; as they concern the lichenist, quite another. These are the various grays and browns which give November its character. There are also some red mazes, like the twigs of the white maple and our Cornus sericea, etc. (the red osier, too, further north), and some distinct yellow ones, as willow twigs, which are most interesting in spring. The silvery abeles are steadily falling nowadays. The chalky white under side of these leaves is remarkable. None of our leaves is so white. I think I admire again about this time the still bright- red or crimson fruit of the sumach, now when not only its own but most other leaves have fallen and there are few bright tints, it is now so distinct on its twigs. Your attention is not distracted by its brilliant leaves now. I go across N. Barrett’s land and over the road be- yond his house. The aspect of the Great Meadows is now nearly uniform, the new and exposed grass being nearly as brown and sere as that which was not cut. Thus Nature has been blending and harmonizing the colors here where man had interfered. I wandered over bare fields where the cattle, lately turned out, roamed restless and unsatisfied with the feed; I dived into a rustling young oak wood where not a green leaf was to be seen; I climbed to the geological axis of elevation and clambered over curly-pated rocks whose strata are on their edges, amid the rising woods; and again I thought, They are all gone surely, and left me alone. Not even a man Friday remains. What nu- triment can I extract from these bare twigs? Starva- tion stares me in the face. “Nay, nay!” said a nut- hatch, making its way, head downward, about a bare hickory close by. “’The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat. Only the superfluous has been swept away. Now we behold the naked truth. If at any time the weather is too bleak and cold for you, keep the sunny side of the trunk, for there is a wholesome and inspiring warmth such as the summer never afforded. There are the winter mornings, with the sun on the oak wood tops. While buds sleep, thoughts wake.” (“Hear! hear!” screamed the jay from a neighboring copse, where I had heard a tittering for some time.) “ Winter has a concen- trated and nutty kernel if you know where to look for it.” And then the speaker shifted to another tree, further off, and reiterated his assertions, and his mate at a dis- tance confirmed them; and I heard a suppressed chuckle from a red squirrel that heard the last remark, but had kept silent and invisible all the while. Is that you? ““Yes-sir-ee,” said he. Then, running down a slanting bough, he called out rather impudently, “Look here! just get a snug-fitting fur coat and a pair of fur gloves like mine, and you may laugh at a northeast storm,” and then he wound up with a slang phrase, in his own lingo, accompanied by a flourish of his tail, just as a newsboy twirls his fingers with his thumb on his nose and inquires, “ Does your mother know you are out ?” The wild pear tree on Ponkawtasset has some yellow leaves still. The now more noticeable green radical leaves of the buttercup in the russet pastures remind me of the early spring to come, of which they will offer the first evidence. Now, too, I can see (for the same reason) where grows our only patch of broom, a quarter of a mile off, it [is] such a distinct, somewhat yellowish, green. Already the creeping juniper is a ripe glaucous green, with a distinct ruddy tinge to the upper surface, — the whole bush a ripe tint like a fruit. I stand in Ebby Hubbard’s yellow birch swamp, ad- miring some gnarled and shaggy picturesque old birches there, which send out large knee-like limbs near the ground, while the brook, raised by the late rain, winds fuller than usual through the rocky swamp. I thought with regret how soon these trees, like the black birches that grew on the hill near by, would be all cut off, and there would be almost nothing of the old Concord left, and we should be reduced to read old deeds in order to be reminded of such things, — deeds, at least, in which some old and revered bound trees are mentioned. These will be the only proof at last that they ever existed. Pray, farmers, keep some old woods to match the old deeds. Keep them for history’s sake, as specimens of what the township was. Let us not be reduced to a mere paper evidence, to deeds kept in a chest or secretary, when not so much as the bark of the paper birch will be left for evidence, about its decayed stump. The sides of the old Carlisle road where it is low and moist are (and have for a long time been), for many rods together and a rod in width, brown or cinnamon-colored with the withered dicksonia fern, not like the brown of trees (their withered leaves), but a peculiar cinnamon- brown. The bare huckleberry bushes and the sweet- ferns are draped with them as a kind of mourning. Solidago puberula still out, for you see a few bright- yellow solidago flowers long after they are generally turned to a dirty-white fuzzy top. Pratt says he saw a few florets on a Polygala sanguinea within a week. He shows me samphire, plucked three weeks ago in Brigh- ton, when it was a very brilliant crimson still. Looking from Pratt’s window at sunset, I saw that purple or rosy light reflected from some old chestnut rails on the hilltop before his house. Methinks it is pinkish, even like the old cow-droppings in the pastures. So universally does Nature blush at last. The very herbage which has gone through the stomachs and in- testines of the cow acquires at last a faint pinkish tinge. The button-bush balls are now blackish (really dark- brown) and withered, looking much blacker against the light than a month ago.

It is remarkable that the only deciduous trees in the town which now make any show with their living leaves are: (1) scarlet oaks, perhaps only one (2) Populus tremuliformis, one (3) dogwood, (the small white birch (2. e. young trees) spangles hardly deserved to be named), weeping willows, Salix alba, sil- very abele, poplars (Italian), some apples, some horse- chestnuts, rarely wild pear trees, some English cherries (orange or yellow),—the first three alone being in- digenous, to eight foreign. And of shrubs, there are Jersey tea, gooseberry, two kinds of rose, perhaps sweet-fern, meadow-sweet, and high blackberry; also the lilac, quince, buckthorn, broom, privet, hawthorn, and barberry, well leaved. The very few leaves on sallows, Viburnum nudum, high blueberry, and perhaps Cornus sericea, do not deserve to be named, and hardly the five [sc] above. I have not seen the bayberry or beach plums. And add, perhaps, a few other shrubs. Sweet-briar pretty (?) well leaved. (Is it foreign?) Orof shrubs, seven foreign to about six native, and the last much the least noticeable and much the thinnest-leaved. There are a very few living yellow leaves on young wild cherries yet, but these are not nearly so much to be named as the birch spangles.' The newspaper tells me that Uncannunuc was white with snow for a short time on the morning of the 7th. Thus steadily but unobserved the winter steals down from the north, till from our highest hills we can dis- cern its vanguard. Next week, perchance, our own hills will be white. Little did we think how near the winter was. It is as if a scout had brought in word that an enemy were approaching in force only a day’s march distant. Manchester was the spy this time, which has a camp at the base of that hill. We had not thought seri- ously of winter; we dwelt in fancied security yet. P. M. — To Great Fields and Walden. The scarlet oak by Agricultural Ground (and no doubt generally) is falling fast, and has been for some days, and they have now generally grown dull — before the leaves have lost their color. Other oaks may be said [to] have assumed their true November aspect; 7. ¢., the larger ones are about bare. Only the latest black oaks are leafy, and they just withered. The trees on the hill just north of Alcott’s land, which I saw yesterday so distinctly from Ponkawtasset, and thought were either larches or aspens, prove to be larches. On a hill like this it seems they are later to change and brighter now than those in the Abel Heywood swamp, which are brownish-yellow. The first-named larches were quite as distinct amid the pines seen a mile off as near at hand. Oak sprouts — white and black, at least —are a deeper and darker red than the trees. Here is a white oak sprout, for example, far brighter red than any tree of the kind Iever saw. I do not find that black oaks get to be quite scarlet or red at all, yet the very young and sprouts often are, and are hard to distinguish from the scarlet oak. Garfield shot a hen-hawk just as I came up on the hillside in front of his house. He has killed three within two years about his house, and they have killed two hens for him. They will fly off with a hen. In this case the hen was merely knocked over. I was surprised to find that this bird had not a red tail, and guessed it must be a young one. I brought it home and found that it was so, the same which Wilson called “ Falco leverianus, American Buzzard or White-breasted Hawk,”’ it differed so much from the old. There [was] little if any rufous brown about this bird. It had a white breast and prettily barred (with blackish or dark-brown) white tail-coverts ;* was generally dark-brown with white spots above. He says that he killed the others also at this season, and that they were marked like this. They were all young birds, then, and hence so bold or inexperienced, perhaps. They take his hens from between the house and the barn. When the hawk comes, all the hens and roosters run for the barn. I see catnep turned at top to a crimson purple. As I stood upon Heywood’s Peak, I observed in the very middle of the pond, which was smooth and re- flected the sky there, what at first I took to be a sheet of very thin, dark ice two yards wide drifting there, the first ice of the season, which had formed by the shore in the morning, but immediately I considered that it was too early and warm for that. Then I wondered for a moment what dark film could be floating out there on the pure and unruffled lake. To be sure, it was not a very conspicuous object, and most would not have no- ticed it! But, suspecting what it was, I looked through my glass and could plainly see the dimples made by a school of little fishes continually coming to the surface there together. It was exactly analogous to the dark rippled patches on the sea made by the menhaden as seen from Cape Cod. Why have I never observed the like in the river? In this respect, also, Walden is a small ocean. We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just be- fore setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenome- non as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year. It is of no use to plow deeper than the soil is, unless you mean to follow up that mode of cultivation persist- ently, manuring highly and carting on muck at each plowing, — making a soil, in short. Yet many a man likes to tackle mighty themes, like immortality, but in his discourse he turns up nothing but yellow sand, under which what little fertile and available surface soil he may have is quite buried and lost. He should teach frugality rather, — how to postpone the fatal hour,— should plant a crop of beans. He might have raised enough of these to make a deacon of him, though never a preacher. Many a man runs his plow so deep in heavy or stony soil that it sticks fast in the furrow. It is a great art in the writer to improve from day to day just that soil and fertility which he has, to harvest that crop which his life yields, whatever it may be, not be straining as if to reach apples or oranges when he yields only ground-nuts. He should be digging, not soaring. Just as earnest as your life is, so deep is your soil. If strong and deep, you will sow wheat and raise bread of life in it. Now the young hen-hawks, full-grown but inexperi- enced, still white-breasted and brown (not red)-tailed, swoop down after the farmer’s hens, between the barn and the house, often carrying one off in their clutches, and all the rest of the pack half fly, half run, to the barn. Unwarrantably bold, one ventures to stoop before the farmer’s eyes. He clutches in haste his trusty gun, which hangs, ready loaded, on its pegs; he pursues warily to where the marauder sits teetering on a lofty pine, and when he 1s sailing scornfully away he meets his fate and comes fluttering head forward to earth. The ex- ulting farmer hastes to secure his trophy. He treats the proud bird’s body with indignity. He carries it home to show to his wife and children, for the hens were his wife’s special care. He thinks it one of his best shots, full thirteen rods. This gun is “an all-fired good piece” — nothing but robin-shot. The body of the victim is delivered up to the children and the dog and, like the body of Hector, is dragged so many times round Troy. But alas for the youthful hawk, the proud bird of prey, the tenant of the skies! We shall no more see his wave-like outline against a cloud, nor hear his scream from behind one. He saw but a pheasant in the field, the food which nature has provided for him, and stooped to seize it. This was his offense. He, the native of these skies, must make way for those bog-trotters from another land, which never soar. The eye that was conversant with sublimity, that looked down on earth from under its sharp projecting brow, 1s closed; the head that was never made dizzy by any height is brought low; the feet that were not made to walk on earth now lie use- less along it. With those trailing claws for grapnels it dragged the lower sky. Those wings which swept the sky must now dust the chimney-corner, perchance. So weaponed, with strong beak and talons, and wings, like a war-steamer, to carry them about. In vain were the brown-spotted eggs laid, in vain were ye cradled in the loftiest pine of the swamp. Where are your father and mother? Will they hear of your early death? before ye had acquired your full plumage, they who nursed and defended ye so faithfully ?

A pleasant day, especially the forenoon. Thermometer 46° at noon. Some would call it Indian summer, but it does not deserve to be called summer; grows cool in afternoon when I go — To Baker Farm aspen via Cliffs. Some very handsome Solidago nemoralis in bloom on Fair Haven Hill. (Look for these late flowers — Novem- ber flowers — on hills, above frost.) I think I may say that about the 5th the white, swamp white, and black, and perhaps red, oaks (the last may be later) were in their November condition, 2. e. for the most part fallen. The few large black oak tops, still cov- ered with leaves above the forest (2. e. just withered), are brownish-yellow. The brilliancy of the scarlet oak being generally dulled, the season of brilliant leaves may be considered over, — say about the 10th; and now a new season be- gins, the pure November season of the russet earth and withered leaf and bare twigs and hoary withered goldenrods, etc. From Fair Haven Hill, using my glass, I think that I can see some of the snow of the 7th still left on the brow of Uncannunuc. Itisa light line, lying close along under the edge of a wood which covers the summit, which has protected it. I can understand how much nearer they must feel to winter who live in plain sight of that than we do. I think that I could not have detected the edge of the forest if it had not been for the snow. In the path below the Cliff, I see some blue-stemmed goldenrod turned yellow as well as purple. The Jersey tea is fallen, all but the terminal leaves. These, how- ever, are the greenest and apparently least changed of any indigenous plant, unless it be the sweet-fern. With- ered leaves generally, though they remain on the trees, are drooping. As I go through the hazel bushes toward the sun, I notice the silvery light reflected from the fine down on their tender twigs, this year’s growth. This apparently protects them against the winter. The very armor that Nature puts on reminds you of the foe she would resist. This a November phenomenon, — the silvery light reflected from a myriad of downy surfaces. A true November seat is amid the pretty white-plumed Andropogon scoparius, the withered culms of the pur- ple wood grass which covers so many dry knolls. There is a large patch at the entrance to Pleasant Meadow. It springs from pink-brown clumps of radical leaves, which make good seats. Looking toward the sun, as I sit in the midst of it rising as high as my head, its count- less silvery plumes are a very cheerful sight. At a dis- tance they look like frost on the plant. I look out westward across Fair Haven Pond. The warmer colors are now rare. A cool and silvery light is the prevailing one; dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow. Hornbeam bare; how long? Perhaps with the ostrya and just after elms? There are still a few leaves on the large Populus tremulijormis, but they will be all gone in a day or two. They have turned quite yellow. Hearing in the oak and near by a sound as if some one had broken a twig, I looked up and saw a jay pecking at an acorn. ‘There were several jays busily gathering acorns on a scarlet oak. I could hear them break them off. They then flew to a suitable limb and, placing the acorn under one foot, hammered away at it busily, look- ing round from time to time to see if any foe was ap- proaching, and soon reached the meat and nibbled at it, holding up their heads to swallow, while they held it very firmly with their claws. (Their hammering made a sound like the woodpecker’s.) Nevertheless it some- times dropped to the ground before they had done with it. Aphides on alder. Sap still flows in scarlet oak. Returned by Spanish Brook Path. Notice the glau- cous white bloom on the thimble-berry of late, as there are fewer things to notice. So many objects are white or light, preparing us for winter. By the 10th of November we conclude with the scar- let oak dulled (and the colors of October generally faded), with a few golden spangles on the white birches and on a lingering Populus tremuliformis and a few sal- lows, a few green leaves on the Jersey tea, and a few lingering scarlet or yellow or crimson ones on the flower- ing dogwood in a sheltered place, the gooseberry, the high blueberry, Cornus sericea, the late rose and the com- mon smooth one, and the sweet-briar,! meadow-sweet, sweet-fern, and Viburnum nudum.’ But they are very rare or uninteresting. ‘To these may be added the intro- duced plants of November 9th, which are more leafy. Of them the silvery abele, English cherry, and broom have been of the most interesting colors.

Goodwin brings me this forenoon a this year’s loon, which he just: killed on the river, — great northern diver, but a smaller specimen than Wil- son describes and somewhat differently marked. It is twenty-seven inches long to end of feet by forty-four, and bill three and three-quarters to angle of mouth; above blackish-gray with small white spots (two at end of each feather).* Beneath, pure white, throat and all, except a dusky bar across the vent. Bill chiefly pale- bluish and dusky. You are struck by its broad, flat, sharp-edged legs, made to cut through the water rather than to walk with, set far back and naturally stretched out backward, its long and powerful bill, conspicuous white throat and breast. Dislodged by winter in the north, it is slowly travelling toward a warmer clime, diving in the cool river this morning, which is now full of light, the trees and bushes on the brink having long since lost their leaves, and the neighboring fields are white with frost. Yet this hardy bird is comfortable and contented there if the sportsman would let it alone. P. M. — To Island and J. P. Brown’s cold pond. A cold day. Now seek sunny and sheltered places as in early spring, the south side the island, for example. Certain localities are thus distinguished. And they re- tain this peculiarity permanently, unless it depends on a wood which may be cut. Thousands of years hence this may still be the warmest and sunniest spot in the spring and fall. I hear here a faint creaking of two or three crickets or locusts, but it is a steady sound, — not the common cricket’s, — long-continued, and when one pauses, gen- erally another continues the strain, so that 1t seems ab- solutely continuous. They are either in the grass or on the bushes by the edge of the water, under this sunny wood-side. I afterward hear a few of the common cricket on the side of Clamshell. ‘Thus they are confined now to the sun on the south sides of hills and woods. They are quite silent long before sunset. Snow-fleas are skipping on the surface of the water at the edge, and spiders running about. These become prominent now. The waters look cold and empty of fish and most other inhabitants now. Here, in the sun in the shelter of the wood, the smooth shallow water, with the stubble standing in it, is waiting for ice. Indeed, ice that formed last night must have recently melted in it. The sight of such water now reminds me of ice as much as of water. No doubt many fishes have gone into winter quarters.’ The flowering dogwood, though still leafy, is unin- teresting and partly withered. Gossamer reflecting the light is another November phenomenon (as well as October). I see here, looking toward the sun, a very distinct silvery sheen from the cranberry vines, as from a thousand other November surfaces, though, looking down on them, they are dark- purple. Speaking of twiggy mazes, the very stubble and fine pasture grasses unshorn are others reflecting the light, too, like twigs; but these are of a peculiar bleached brownish color, a principal ingredient in the russet of the earth’s surface.’ | Going by the willow-row above railroad, scare up a small duck, — perhaps teal, — and, in the withered grass at Nut Meadow Brook, two black ducks, which rise black between me and the sun, but, when they have circled round to the east, show some silvery sheen on the under side of their wings. Am surprised to see a lit- tle ice in this brook in the shade, as I push far up it through a dense field of withered blue-joint, — a spot white with frost, a few inches over. Saw a small pool in the woods also skimmed over, and many ice-crystals heaved up in low ground. Scare up.a bird which at first ran in the grass, then flew,—a snipe. See only a very few small water-bugs in the brook, but no large ones nor skaters. As a general rule, the leaves hold on longest on our indigenous trees and shrubs which were the first to leaf out, e. g. aspen, white birch, meadow-sweet, gooseberry, roses, sallows. In the shade of the wood, on the hillside just west of the cold pond, am surprised to see the frost about the cistus not in the least melted. This, at least, is an evi- dence that cold weather is come. Looking closely at it, it reminds me by its form and position of the decodon bark half cracked open. It consists of four or five thin curled shavings of frost, so to speak horizontally : grained, placed vertically (OK 3 and based on the stem, J) C 5 )) one within another, and / @ curling toward the same (\ ‘ side, forming a sort of fool’s cap of different thicknesses, or cockles, or sugar-plums. It seems it is so cool that the frost about the cistus does not melt all day, in the shade. Coming home I have cold fingers, and must row to get warm. In the meadows the pitcher-plants are bright-red. This is the month of nuts and nutty thoughts, — that November whose name sounds so bleak and cheerless. Perhaps its harvest of thought is worth more than all the other crops of the year. Men are more serious now. I find, in the wood-path this side that pond, thirteen kernels of corn close together, and five of them have the germ uncovered, the thin husk that was over them torn off. This might have been done accidentally by the squirrel (?) in separating it from the ear or in trans- porting it. And this may be the origin of some accounts of their eating out the germ to prevent its sprouting. If they do eat it, perhaps it is because it is the softest (as it is) and perhaps the most savory part. These were at least a third of a mile from a corn-field.! The tail-coverts of the young hen-hawk, 2. e. this year’s bird, at present are white, very handsomely barred or watered with dark brown in an irregular manner, somewhat as above, the bars on opposite sides of the midrib alternating in an agreeable manner. Such natu- ral objects have suggested the “watered” figures or colors in the arts. Few mortals ever look down on the tail-coverts of a young hen-hawk, yet these are not only beautiful, but of a peculiar beauty, being differently marked and colored (to judge from Wilson’s account of the old) from those of the old bird. Thus she finishes her works above men’s sight. The scarlet oak leaf! What a graceful and pleasing outline! a combination of graceful curves and angles. These deep bays in the leaf are agreeable to us as the thought of deep and smooth and secure havens to the mariner. But both your love of repose and your spirit of adventure are addressed, for both bays and head- lands are represented, — sharp-pointed rocky capes and rounded bays with smooth strands. ‘To the sailor’s eye it is a much indented shore, and in his casual glance he thinks that if he doubles its sharp capes he will find a haven in its deep rounded bays. If I were a drawing- master, I would set my pupils to copying these leaves, that they might learn to draw firmly and gracefully. It is a Shore to the aerial ocean, on which the windy surf beats. How different from the white oak leaf with its rounded headlands, on which no lighthouse need be placed !? Some white oak leaves retain a smothered inward crimson fire long after they have fallen very pure and complete, more interesting to me than their fresher glow, because more indestructible, — an evening glow.

I hear from Ricketson to-day that on the 10th the following trees, which I had not seen lately, were leafy and, as I infer, more or less unwithered. His words are, “‘ Horse-chestnut quite full of yellow and green foliage. English walnut ditto.'’ Beech, linden (1), hawthorn (nearly perfect in green foliage, only a little decayed at the top, but in-a sheltered place), silver linden, copper beech (2), elm (3), weeping ash,’ Euony- mus Europeus (4).”* Also “the guelder-rose”’* and “Bignonia radicans*® and acuminata” and “numerous shrubs in full leaf.” Of those not European, “Osage orange (Maclura), Cornus florida (handsome), tulip, three-thorned acacia,® Mexican cypress.” He sent me specimens of those numbered above which were fresh, especially the fourth, and the third next, the second least so; but then what he sends for the Ameri- can linden is greener than the European!! I find that E. Hoar observed the English elms with leaves or leafy still November 2d, near Salisbury. It is much the coldest day yet, and the ground is a little frozen and resounds under my tread. All people move the brisker for the cold, yet are braced and a little elated by it. They love to say, “Cold day, sir.” Though the days are shorter, you get more work out of a hired man than before, for he must work to keep warm. P. M. — To Hill. The riverside is skimmed over and presents a wintry aspect, — those great plaits, or folds, as it were, where the crystals have shot, wool-grass frozen in, and the thin white ice where the water has gone down. Now for a brisk and energetic walk, with a will and a purpose. Have done with sauntering, in the idle sense. You must rush to the assault of winter. Make haste into the outskirts, climb the ramparts of the town, be on the alert and let nothing escape your observation. The army is all van. The cold alone has brought down a good part of the remaining leaves of abeles and white willows. I see the handsome leaves of the last thickly strewn over the ice and reminding of grain even, half upside down. Pitch pine leaves are about all fallen. The very common redness of the recent shoots, as white maples, huckleberries, etc., now that the twigs are bare, and on many sides masses of them are run together in a maze, adds to the general russet of nature. The black willow shoots are a very pale brownish yellow. We are now reduced to browsing on buds and twigs, and methinks, with this diet and this cold, we shall look to the stall-fed thinkers like those unkempt cattle in meadows now, grazing the withered grass. | Examining closely the base of some frost-weed, I find in each case a little frost firmly attached to the naked woody stem just under the bark, having burst the last for about an inch along the stem and elevated it. Per- haps this weed dies down slowly, since it blossoms a second time, and there is more sap now in the stem near its base than usual, which escapes in a vapor from the stem, and, being frozen, forms this kind of icicle. I think that the change to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a late and more perfect and final maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits, and not to that of green leaves, etc., etc., which merely serve a purpose.’ The word “ripe” is thought by some to be derived from the verb “to reap,” according to which that is ripe which is ready to be reaped. The fall of the leaf is preceded by a ripe old age.

8.30 a.m. — To Hill. I notice of late the darker green (livid ?) of the arbor- vite and other evergreens, the effect of cold. So they are never so purely bright a green as immediately after their fall. They are not perfectly ever-green. I hear go over, not far from the house, goldfinches, as I think, — their mewing note and ricochet flight, — I think not redpolls, for I hear no rattling notes. Also hear a robin’s note. Last night was quite cold, and the ground is white with frost. Thus gradually, but steadily, winter ap- proaches. First there is the bleached grass, then the frost, then snow, the fields growing more and more hoary. ‘There is frost not only on all the withered grass and stubble, but it is particularly thick and white and handsome around the throat of every hole and chink in the earth’s surface, the congealed breath of the earth as it were, so that you would think at first it was the entry to some woodchuck’s, or squirrel’s, or mouse’s, retreat. But it is the great dormant earth gone into winter quar- ters here, the earth letting off steam after the summer’s work is over. As I stand on the hill at 9 a. m., it looks like snow; the sky is overcast; smokes go up thickly from the village, answering to the frost in the chinks; and there is a re- markable stillness, as if it were earlier, the effect of the colder weather merely, as it were stiffening things. Leaves, twigs, birds (except the chickadee, and its feeble note seems to enhance the stillness), and insects are hushed. The few tinkling sounds — the chopping, or the like — are heard far and distinctly. It is like the calm before a hurricane or an earthquake, this stillness which precedes the winter’s setting in. Larches now look dark or brownish yellow. Now, on the advent of much colder weather, the last Populus tremuliformis has lost its leaves, the sheltered dogwood is withered, and even the scarlet oak may be considered as extinguished, and the larch looks brown and nearly bare, and the few leaves left here and there on the indigenous shrubs named on the 9th are being rapidly killed by the same cause, and are falling. Now for twinkling light reflected from unseen win- dows in the horizon in the early twilight. One hickory at least (on the hill) has not lost its leaves yet, 2. e., has a good many left. So they are a month falling. I see some feathers of a blue Jay scattered along a wood-path, and at length come to the body of the bird. What a neat and delicately ornamented creature, finer than any work of art in a lady’s boudoir, with its soft light purplish-blue crest and its dark-blue or purplish secondaries (the narrow half) finely barred with dusky. It is the more glorious to live in Concord because the jay is so splendidly painted.* A large flock of geese go over just before night. After expecting snow all day, — though we did not know but it would prove rain, — we looked out the window at 9 p. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight, — only there was no moon. ‘Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth. Of course frozen ground, ice, and snow have now banished the few remaining skaters (if there were any ?), crickets, and water-bugs. It is wonderful what gradation and harmony there is in nature. The light reflected from bare twigs at this season — 2. é., since they began to be bare, in the latter part of October — is not only like that from gossamer, but like that which will ere long be reflected from the ice that will incrust them. So the bleached herbage of the fields is like frost, and frost like snow, and one pre- pares for the other.

It is very cold and windy; thermometer 26. I walk to Walden and Andromeda Ponds. It is all at once perfect winter. I walk on frozen ground two- thirds covered with a sugaring of dry snow, and this strong and cutting northwest wind makes the oak leaves rustle dryly enough to set your heart on edge. A great many have fallen, even since the snow last evening. Take a citizen out into an oak sprout-land when there is a sugaring of dry snow and a cold, cutting northwest wind rustles the leaves. A sympathetic shiver will seize him. He will know of no fire to warm his wits by. He has no pleasing pursuit to follow through these difficulties, no traps to inspect, no chopping to do. Every resounding step on the frozen earth is a vain knocking at the door of what was lately genial Nature, his bountiful mother, now turned a stepmother. He is left outside to starve. The rustling leaves sound like the fierce breathing of wolves, — an endless pack, half famished, from the north, impelled by hunger to seize him. Of birds only the chickadees seem really at home. Where they are is a hearth and a bright fire constantly burning. The tree sparrows must be very lively to keep warm. The rest keep close to-day. You will see where a mouse (or mole ?) has run under the thinnest snow, like this. Such humble paths they prefer, perhaps to escape nocturnal foes. Now I begin to notice the silver downy twigs of the sweet-fern in the sun (lately bare), the red or crimson twigs and buds of the high blueberry. The different colors of the water andromeda in different lights. If he looks into the water, he gets no comfort there, for that is cold and empty, expecting ice. Now, while the frosty air begins to nip your fingers and your nose, the frozen ground rapidly wears away the soles of your shoes, as sandpaper might; the old she wolf is nibbling at your very extremities. The frozen ground eating away the soles of your shoes is only typical] of the vulture that gnaws your heart this month. Now all that moves migrates, or has migrated. Ducks are gone by. The citizen has sought the town. Prob- ably the witch-hazel and many other flowers lingered till the 11th, when it was colder. The last leaves and flowers (?) may be said to fall about the middle of November. Snow and cold drive the doves to your door, and so your thoughts make new alliances.